Summary:Varanim and Spring have a chat about Innocence. - INCOMPLETE
XP:S1, V1
Tags:< A War In The Dark | Sol Invictus Logs | A Wrench in Fate For Love >
Spring tracks Varanim, using complicated abuse of his information-finding Charms, plus asking for directions, to a small forest clearing, just around dawn.
Varanim Varanim, who is positioned in the exact spot that will soon be struck by the rising sun through a gap in the trees, is going through a staff kata with fluid familiarity and perhaps unnecessary vigor. She either doesn't hear or doesn't notice Spring for a few seconds, until she turns and extends a strike toward the tree by him--then she pauses, and wipes sweat from her face.
Varanim "Eh?"
Spring "Please, do not let me distract you. I can wait."
Varanim shrugs and turns back to greet the sun, resuming her practice and not ceasing until the light of the dawn is full upon them and she's shaking slightly with fatigue. Finally she drops her stick, makes an abortive gesture to her jacket as if going for a drink, and looks at him with narrowed eyes.
Varanim "Now: eh?"
Spring stands up and starts walking over to her jacket.
Spring "Good extension."
Spring "Have you been speaking much with Zahara lately?"
Varanim looks briefly surprised by the compliment on her technique, then nods. "Sure, we do girl stuff together, like talk about her favorite grudges."
Spring picks up her jacket and feels around in the pockets for the flask he expects to be there. "Have you, by chance, heard what she thinks of Innocence?"
Varanim The flask is, in fact, there. Eyeing him a bit warily she says, "Not really, but I expect her recommendations start with a pair of pliers."
Spring "Mm." Spring flips her the flask.
Spring "So far as I can tell, Innocence has forgotten everything she once was." Spring sits under a tree, and sighs.
Spring "Do you think that she deserves punishment, then, for things she did in a past incarnation, that she cannot even become aware of?"
Varanim catches it and takes a short drink before slouching down against a rock to scowl thoughtfully. "That's the second time recently someone's talked to me about deserving punishment. What does that mean, anyway? What interesting change will be worked in the world by it?"
Spring "Obviously, I am not particularly enamored of the idea, either."
Spring "I suppose Zahara believes that, for justice to exist, criminals must be punished."
Spring "I would prefer to somehow rehabilitate them, and by anyone's standards, Innocence has been rehabilitated."
Varanim "Sure, but you're a big softy." She smirks. "I'm not sure I really believe in justice, but I'm a big fan of letting the boring past lie, and Innocence the mental six-year-old at least isn't running around breaking the other little girl's necks."
Spring "She is actually much smarter than she might initially appear," Spring begins defensively, then stops, and sighs again.
Spring "How, then, do you suggest I might convince Zahara of this ideal?"
Spring "I know so little of Innocence, really. I have only her word that her memories have even been lost."
Spring "Her Exaltation is of a type never before seen, her powers unique. Anything is possible, and we have no source of information."
Varanim "Hmm. It might not convince her, but you could at least distract her by scoping the details of Innocence's shard. Oh, excuse me, her Crystalline Bequeathal of Divine Right."
Spring "Her what?"
Varanim "Don't look at me, it's what His Fussiness calls them. Which reminds me, I owe Lytek a favor, and I bet he'd soil his heavenly drawers at the prospect of looking over Innocence." Interested, she only halfheartedly remembers to leer so that sounds properly dirty.
Spring "Hm."
Spring "An ideal solution."
Spring "How may we speak with him? Returning to Heaven is apt to be challenging."
Varanim looks a little shifty-eyed. "Would you believe that I've taken up prayer?"
Spring "It would not fit with the rest of my mental model, no."
Varanim "And... it turn out that the tree you gave me bears useful seeds. Next time you're by the treehouse, have a listen down in the heart room--I left one with Lytek."
Spring "Really."
Spring "You never cease to amaze me."
Spring "Let us speak with him now."
Varanim was frowning at some recollection, then blinks at Spring and nods after a moment. "Let's."
Varanim --
Spring So they do.
Varanim takes her seat on the floor in the middle of the Enmities room. "Who's my favorite almighty shard clerk, whooizhe?" she coos at the listening post.
Spring politely looks in another direction.
Lytek There is a long silence, then finally some irritable grumbling on the other end.
Varanim "You don't know it yet, but you owe me. I mean, uh, we bring offerings before you today. And stuff."
Spring ::Should I also pray?::
Lytek "Why am I concerned about that lead-in...?" the God of Exaltation muses to himself. "What is it today?"
Varanim ::Feel free to chime in if he starts getting cranky.::
Varanim "I think we have something that isn't in your closet. Also, I want that Bequeathal we talked about."
Spring ::Does he get significantly more cranky than he is currently?::
Varanim ::He starts complaining about his hearing going, and needing more groveling to boost the signal. Trust me, you'll know it when you hear it.::
Lytek "I'm listening," he says. "Listening very carefully."
Varanim "Spring? Your kid, your explanation."
Varanim "Oh, right, glorious Lytek, this is Spring. He missed you before because he was off feeling up the boss."
Spring coughs.
Spring "Hello. I am Long-Awaited Spring."
Spring "Have you met Innocence?" These carefully chosen words communicate, through the link, all the information Spring has on the topic.
Lytek "Aaah, yes, I remember you," he says, after a pause. "Well: what's on your mind today?"
Lytek After Spring's question, Lytek is silent.
Spring waits a while, then coughs politely.
Varanim "So, was that a really great look on your face or what?"
Lytek There's another, much briefer pause, and then, suddenly, an exclamation: "...why didn't anyone tell me about this!"
Spring "We did not want to spoil the surprise?"
Varanim "Hello, it's not like your address is posted. We're only talking now because I'm so smart. Great one," she remembers to add.
Varanim "I expect you can see why we thought you'd be interested."
Lytek "This is a big deal," Lytek's voice says, echoing out into the chamber. "This hasn't happened before." He pauses. "...why did you keep an Abyssal in your stomach when you underwent the Transcendent Pyre Rebirth?"
Varanim raises her eyebrows at Spring.
Spring "I carefully examined both the Abyssal and the Rebirth and neither instruction manual indicated any potential issues."
Lytek "Well, good job," he says. "I think you broke it."
Spring "What does that...mean?"
Varanim "Busted," she says quietly.
Lytek "What does that mean...?" he says, implicitly indicating the gap at the end of Spring's sentence.
Varanim "What does that mean, oh magnificent caretaker of closets, he meant to say."
Varanim "I should bring Imrama next time, he's really good at this stuff."
Lytek "It means that hitching a ride on your identity crisis appears to have fundamentally changed something about the Crystalline Bequeathal in question. It should be filtering the Essence, aspecting it, aligning it correctly with the subject's overall motonic structure. It's not."
Varanim "Same Essence flux, but no plan for it? Just throw a bunch of shit up in the air and see what happens, every time?"
Spring "Hm."
Spring "Is this dangerous?"
Lytek "Something like that. The filtration process is actually a key element of the Exaltation," he says, beginning to shift into Prodigious Professor mode. "In order to maintain motonic equilibrium throughout the five moto-gravitic centers of the soul structure, a weighting aspectation is a necessary hook mechanism to interact with the greater vis river..." He continues on in this vein for a while, forgetting even to ask for more prayers.
Spring looks annoyed, picks a piece of wood off of the wall and begins chewing it in a thoughtful manner.
Spring "So," he repeats when Lytek finishes his statement, "is it dangerous?"
Lytek To Spring's followup question, he responds: "That's a good question. The biggest reason I can't answer you right off is that it isn't supposed to work. When the first work was being done, that was actually one of the intended prototypes -- disconnecting the Bequeathals from any source of greater power -- but Atomnos and the Incarna with their heads together couldn't get it to come together right."
Lytek He thinks for a moment longer, then responds further. "If it's actually as unbounded as you describe, it's probably very dangerous indeed."
Spring pauses for a moment.
Spring "Are you saying that you have no idea how Innocence's powers function, and, further, that as far as you know, no higher power does either?"
Spring "Oh Great Lord of All Exaltations Except Apparently This One?"
Lytek "Not quite," he says, the edge of his voice getting cranky again. "I have a very good idea of how they function: some structure in her soul geography is holding her together in such a way that she doesn't instantly explode every time she tries to channel an unfiltered mote into some tiny effect. I just don't know what structure that is."
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